Bees and Annuals

 My little Leaf Cutter Bees are working on their second generation.  They filled all of the bamboo tubes and I had to add new ones.  The second generation is just beginning to emerge as the last of the first generation fill the newer tubes.

Once they have laid their eggs, they cap the end of the tube with pieces of leaves that they have cut.  I am seeing little holes here and there around the garden.  They like the pole beans and other soft leaves.  I would love to catch one flying with one of these chunks.

I am enjoying some of the annuals I started from seed just to have something different from the usual offerings at the local greenhouses.

Tangerine Vinca

Kosmo Celosia

The reblooming Daylily varieties that I cut back first are blooming a little.  This is about all a reblooming variety will muster.  But it looks much fresher that a tired, yellowing plant.

Self seeded Celosia

The large, Creamy White Marigolds that I cut back hard to size control are beginning to bloom.  Some of them are quite nice, but they are very inconsistent in both color and bloom form from plant to plant.  Not a stable hybrid.

The Foxtrot Pennisetum that I divided back in March has gotten quite large and is starting to put out seed heads.  All of the divided grasses in this area are thriving.

Foxtrot

Long Term Fixes

Sometimes you will have something to fix in the garden that takes a long... long... time.  Back in March, when the snow melted, I noticed that we had a Vole that had nested in one of the evergreen grasses that are up against our deck.  And also that the three Prima Ginger Echinacea plants had suffered quite a bit of Vole damage.  Bed and breakfast. The one in the bottom right corner of the photo below was completely adrift having had all of its roots eaten off below the surface.  The other two also had the delicate roots completely eaten, but each was still anchored by one root the thickness of a pencil.  I heeled the other two in well, but the one that was completely detached I took into the garden, potted in a gallon pot, and left it there in the garden where I could keep an eye on it.

When gardening activity began in May, I would keep it watered and about once a week I would lift up on it to see if was growing any roots.  It was putting out green leaves, and little white hair roots, but they were not anchoring it to the soil.  It needed water at least twice a day and would sometimes look awfully wilted and miserable.  Still I did not give up and around Mid-June it finally gave resistance to being moved and at that point it took off and even flowered.  The other two that I left in the bed were fine with their single roots and grew as normal.  So how do I prevent this next winter?  For one thing I am cutting back those Carex grasses.  Also, I will put wire cloches on the Echinacea and pin them down hard.  In the past, the wire cloches have proven to turn the voles away from Primrose and such.

There is a product created to protect fine roots in Vole situations.  They are essentially chain mail jackets and can be purchased on Amazon.  After the damaged one had rooted in pretty well, I transplanted it into one of these bags.  You just put the bag in a gallon pot and fill with soil.  I gave it some more weeks to recover from that, but it was no longer happy in a pot, difficult to keep watered in this hot weather.  Now it is planted back in the landscape and has perked back up.  When we clear the beds in the fall, I will unroll to top of the bag and hopefully, the combination of cloche and bag will protect it.  I have hesitated to dig up the other two and bag them because they have been growing so well.  Maybe later.

By the way... those red (actually deep tangerine) I started from seed this spring.

I'm still working my way around all of the Daylilies, cutting them back.  The first ones to be cut back have already pushed new growth, and some of them are even putting out new flower stems.

There are a few Daylilies that I simply removed.  I don't like their color or form well enough to try to protect them, but I still don't want the deer eating them.  I'm replacing them with something I like that the deer don't like so much.  Choose your battles.  So now I have a few open holes prepped for next year.  The Daylilies had already outgrown their holes anyway.

As I am clearing the planting spots, I am correcting another mistake I made.  Some of the holes are just too close to rocks.  The below hole, for example, was very difficult to get past the rocks and down to ground level to cut off the foliage with a trimmer.  I cut out a larger space in the road fabric and I am replacing the Lily, which had to be cut to the ground once or twice a year, with something that doesn't require such drastic pruning.  Probably a Butterfly Bush.

While we are out here, take a look at these volunteer Petunias.  This is one of the planters that took the place of the Whiskey Barrels.  I planted Yellow River Hosta in them, and I think that when those plants are mature, their large, three foot span, will look quite impressive in these planters.  In the mean time, though the Hosta are doing well and putting on new growth, they don't look very pretty.  Four or five years ago I had planted Sugar Daddy Petunias and each year I get some volunteers seeding themselves.  Even though I completely dumped the soil out of these planters, turned it over, and put it back, the Petunia seeds were just waiting for another chance to do their thing,

The Hosta makes a nice center piece, but until it fills the pot, we can have other things in there too.

White Marigold Reviews

 One of my annual basics is Marigolds.  They are inexpensive, easy to grow, and adaptable.  Pollinators like them.  Rabbits and Deer don't care too much for them.  Their only natural enemy that I can see is slugs.  But that is easily solved by slug bait, and it is sometimes useful to know where the slugs are as long as you have a spare Marigold or two to replace the ones they skeletonize.  I don't mind replacing a few Marigolds if it means I can bait and defeat the slugs before the Dahlias emerge.

I have always scattered them around the vegetable garden for color but a few years ago I started using them to construct decorative hedges here and there.  For these I preferred the Vanilla F1 variety.  They were the right height with a tight and tidy form.  And they really were nearly white.  They are quite a bright spot in the landscape, and easily seen from any distance.

Vanilla

The past couple of years, Harris Seeds has not produced and marketed them and, unfortunately, there is nothing quite as good on the market.  First I tried saving seeds from the last of the plants from the seeds I had left, but because they are an F1 Hybrid the results were varied and none of them close to what I wanted.  I've tried Snowball (not bad but fewer flowers) and White Swan (too tall).  This year I tried three more varieties, and they are beginning to show their true colors.

Vanilla Cream

The best one is Vanilla Cream.  It is compact and full of blooms.  But as you can see it is not as white.  The photo above and the one below were taken within minutes with the same camera settings, but nearly imperceptible changes in light enhance the yellowness so that one minute you are happy with the shade and the next you realize they may be yellow afterall.  From a distance they still read as white.  More of a French Vanilla Ice Cream white.

Moonlight (below) is quite plainly yellow and did not have very good germination, survival or growth rates.  They are not bushing out even as well as a standard yellow variety.

Moonlight

Creamy White was showing promise.  It is a vigorous plant, a little late to bloom, and very fluffy and rangy.  That wouldn't be a big deal except when the blooms finally began to open up...

Creamy White

...they were sort of a cross between anemone style blooms and single flowers and not even remotely like pompons.  But they are quite white.   The plants were way too tall for what I wanted along the shorter Dahlias even though I had already pinched back the main leader about eight inches weeks ago.  Once I saw what the blooms would be like I went ahead and pruned them back hard for size control.

I am now waiting for the Creamy Whites to get over sulking and put forth even a single bloom.  Obviously they are not a strong performer, because even the four plants along the side of the bed that I only pinched and did not prune hard have failed to bloom at this late date,  The Vanilla Cream are good enough that I went and purchased enough seeds for next year when they went on sale.  I may also go back and experiment again with Snowball but next year is the Semiquincentennial and I am planning a Red White and Blue theme in my annuals and I will need some reliable white Marigolds for that.

Stop and Smell the Flowers

 This is one of those rare days when I didn't do any real work in the garden.  I watered the vegetables and some containers and I picked some cucumbers. And that is it.  But I still walked around everything looking for potential problems and just enjoying the flowers.

Below are some of the Coleus cuttings that I overwintered under a grow light.  There are four plants in the 16 inch container.

ColorBlaze® El Brighto Coleus

The Celosia in the fire pit planter have reseeded themselves for two years now.  I've included a photo below of the original planting of the First Flame Celosia.  You will see that the plants are getting taller and he flowers narrower.  I don't know how much of that has to do with growing conditions.   I need to raise the soil level in this planter next year which will cover the tiny seeds too deeply.  It will be a good year to start with a fresh batch of seed.

This Year

2023

The Coreopsis that I planted to replace the dead Lemon Squeeze grass has bulked up and put on a nice show of flowers.  This is my first time planting Coreopsis.  I like them and next year, provided these survive the winter, I am going to replace two of my least favorite Daylilies in this area with some taller varieties of Coreopsis.

Coreopsis Uptick™ Cream

There are still a couple of late blooming Daylilies looking nice.

Orange Smoothie

Sundried Tomato

Dahlia of the Day:  Bloomquist Pleasing

Tomorrow afternoon it is supposed to rain.  We need it badly.  My 500 gallon rainwater tank that I use to water the raised beds with is half empty.  I will need to go out in the morning when it is cooler and get some more cutting back done.

Sunflowers and Corn Silks

Today was a little hotter (90F) but the garden thermometer said only 40% relative humidity.  I can deal with that.  So I finished my round of weeding by staying on the shady side of each bed....

Sunflower tomorrow?

The first sign of corn silk

Daylily of the Day:  Pink Abundance

Last year the deer ate every one of the blooms on this plant, so I am really enjoying them this year.  It is a very large, happy bloom.

Fertilizer Friday

 Friday is the day that I make sure everything has been fertilized as needed, both the annuals and vegetables.  I use a combination of side dressing with dry fertilizer and watering in with some fish emulsion.  We sure don't need to water considering the inch and a quarter of rain we got on Monday, but following up with a liquid fertilizer makes sure any dry fertilizer is off of the leaves.  This week I am out of the general Garden-Tone, so until I get back into town to stock up I am using the amendments I have on hand.  Bone Meal (Potassium) for the root crops and Blood Meal (Nitrogen) for the others.

The Cabbages, Broccoli and Cauliflowers have been enjoying the cool weather.  And they are also completely protected from the hail.  They have no idea what all the fuss is about.

The Peas and Lettuce also miraculously sustained little hail damage and are going about their business as if nothing has been happening,

That last storm on Monday was a doozy.  We got over an inch of rain in about 20 minutes combined with 5 to 10 minutes of huge hail.  I have spent the past few days picking up dead leaves and putting away frost cloths and the garden in general looks more like a garden and less like a war zone.  The tree leaves that came down in the hail made the whole area look as if it had been put through a blender.

The Dwarf Tomatoes and the Onions look pretty good.  The Micro Tomatoes in the pots are blooming and the Dwarfs have buds on them.  They will not be early like last year but otherwise they should be fine.

The Indeterminate Tomatoes are growing slowly but are nice and green.  They need some sun.  We have had rather overcast days and cool nights.

The Bell Peppers in the ground look abominable but they are all flowering and producing peppers.

The same Bell Pepper varieties in the pots look better but are not producing yet.  I guess it must be true that when a plant thinks it is going to die it gets busy with the reproduction end of things.

Havasu Hot Peppers

The Sweet Corn is fine.  There are some tattered leaves but they have been making good use of the rain and growing well.  This crop could use some heat too.

Solstice Sweet Corn

Gotta Have It Sweet Corn

The Pole Beans are fine.  Last year the timing was such that the new plants put out their first leaves right before the June heat wave and got burned to a crisp.  This year's weather is much more gentle on them.

Monte Gusto Yellow Pole Beans

I frequently have a problem with grass hoppers or earwigs or something munching on the green beans as they put out their cotyledons.  I reseeded the row below and covered it.  I was planning to complete the row down the center of the bed with a second seeding next week, but I will probably wait until the end of the month now.

Seychelles Green Pole Beans

The Cucumbers and Cantaloupes will soon be ready to transplant.  The 6 pack that looks empty is one kind of Cantaloupe that is just now cautiously popping through.

Dill and Sunflowers

Perennial Herbs, Sweet Potatoes, Carrots

Potatoes
with Bone Meal on their leaves

The Flea Beetles have awakened.  I seeded some Mustard along the Potatoes that is just now coming up.  That should attract them away and I can sprinkle that with Diatomaceous Earth.

The annuals surrounding the Dahlias are showing color.
You can't see it in the photo but I have corner posts and have constructed a protective room out of netting.  It saves me a lot of spraying.

The other side of the Dahlias

This spring I ordered in a container raspberry plant.  They are supposed to stay compact and bush like.  It has just begin to put on some real growth.  All I want is enough to nibble on.  Something that I can protect from the birds and bear without too much trouble.  They can have all of the blackberries in the briar patch on the other side of the fence.  The Raspberries are mine!

Bushel and Berry Raspberry Shortcake

The strawberries are producing well now but they are not sweet because we have had overcast days.  They only sweeten in clear sunshine which is not a problem if you are making jam, but is a bummer when you are just snacking on them.  I need 4 cups to make a batch of jam.  Even though half of this bed was just planted this spring, I have not given up hope of a batch of freezer jam.